Child dies after being left in car in south Wichita
By Matt Riedl
The Wichita Eagle
Published Thursday, July 24, 2014, at 8:52 p.m.
Updated Thursday, July 24, 2014, at 10:40 p.m.

A child has died after being left in a hot car Thursday night, a Sedgwick County dispatcher said.

Wichita police officers were dispatched to the 1500 block of South Topeka at 6:41 p.m. The child was triaged in cardiac arrest, the dispatcher said.

A gray Dodge Charger sat in front of the house behind yellow crime-scene tape Thursday as a Sedgwick County Coroner’s van departed the scene around 8:30 p.m.

Police were not releasing information on the incident at the scene Thursday. Dispatchers said no more information would be released until a morning briefing Friday.

Neighbors said they thought the two men who owned the house were foster parents.

Lindsie Teneyck said she thought two boys, two girls, an older child and a baby were living in the house.

Teneyck said she saw one man on the front porch and another man with his head buried in his hands “hysterically crying.”

“They were good people,” Teneyck said. “This isn’t something that I would see them intentionally doing. That’s not the type of people that they are.”

Teneyck said the two men were taken away in a police car but were not handcuffed.

“It’s very sad,” neighbor Sandy Jessogne said. “You wouldn’t expect it in your own yard. When I found out what happened I just couldn’t believe it.”

Temperatures in Wichita were around 90 degrees Thursday evening, according to AccuWeather.

According to a fact sheet put out by San Francisco State University, 17 children have died of heat stroke in cars in 2014 so far. Statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicate a parked car can heat up 20 degrees in 10 minutes.